by Libbylawrence
However, for all of Eve Eden’s efforts and much careful planning on her part, her successful impersonation of Princess Barbara had failed to fool her most deadly of enemies. The Cuckoo was too clever to believe that the lovely blonde woman was truly the lost heir of he royal family. The Cuckoo was ruthless and cruel, and placed no value on either human life nor abstract codes of honor and virtue, but for all that was incredibly intelligent.
The origins of the Cuckoo were unknown. It had come out of obscurity, amassing a small but fiercely devoted following known as the Disciples of the Cuckoo, who had at first seemed to be little more than a harmless sect on the fringes of society, gathering followers among the varied inhabitants of the Jewelled Land, from giants and centaurs to witches, fauns, bears, and trolls, as well as many other creatures who looked like living stuffed animals. The Cuckoo itself never appeared in public, but all those who heard it speak fell under its power. For the power of the Cuckoo was its tongue, which could turn brother against brother, daughter against father, and a mother against her own child.
The Cuckoo’s swift rise to power gave rise to mere legends that none could verify. Once such legend held that the Cuckoo had hatched out of an egg that had been planted in a nest that was not its own, and in that way it had become one of a pair of twin siblings. It not only survived in that fledgling state, but also stole the very milk that sustained its suckling twin, and reached maturity much faster than its ordinary twin ever could. It grew not merely in size and intellect but also in ambition, coming to believe its destiny to be greater than all things in the Jewelled Land, and even the Land itself. The Cuckoo held that it had a grand role to play that could not be encompassed by merely living in peace in this once-happy realm. Its greatest goal was to escape from the Jewelled Land and lay its eggs in many other such lands, but the only way to escape the Land was to bring it to an end by destroying the Porpentine and the Hierogram at the same time, thus destroying the Jewelled Land as well. Until then, it would gather power by infecting every inhabitant with a kind of mental virus through its captivating voice.
It was there that the legend of the Cuckoo ended, and known history began. The Disciples of the Cuckoo arose as little more a minor inconvenience along the Land’s fringes, a small but devoted cult of personality that the royal family knew nothing about. The Disciples built for their master the great Citadel of the Cuckoo, a structure to rival the Royal Palace itself, as a supposed place of worship. In reality, it was a stronghold with which the Cuckoo would take over the Land itself. The King and the Queen were warned by the Hieromancer himself, keeper of that great monument called the Hierogram on the Isle of Thorns, that the Cuckoo’s power was growing, and that it sought the jewels of power in order to gain even greater power than the King himself. One day, he feared, the Cuckoo would grow too powerful to be stopped by any natural means. The Royal Family was too preoccupied with governing their happy kingdom and raising their three-year-old daughter to worry much about the remote threat from this strange new sect and its even stranger leader.
Still, they followed the old seer’s warning and diligently gathered up the jewels of power from across the Land, even completing a great quest to the Arch of the Porpentine to secure that greatest of mystical jewels for safekeeping. Once that was done, the Hieromancer arranged for most of them to be scattered across the Earth, that fabled world from which Lady Alianora and the ancestors of the Royal Family had originated in ages past, but where the Cuckoo itself could never escape unless the Land itself was destroyed.
It seemed that an impasse had been met. But then, one dark night, the Cuckoo’s Disciples swept across the Jewelled Land like a plague and enslaved many of its subjects, changing and altering them by unknown dark magicks into the inhuman, soulless automatons called the Black Guard. The Cuckoo had been prompted to act now, since the Royal Family had been made almost defenseless without their jewels of power, including the greatest of them all, the Porpentine. Oh, the threat that the Loyalists might return from their places of hiding and thwart the Cuckoo was a worry, but it managed to hunt them all down, except for one. The Cuckoo could not locate the infant Princess, and instead imprisoned all those still loyal to the throne as it searched for the missing Porpentine.
The Cuckoo eventually found an ally in the Land of the Nightshades who could do more than its Disciples or Black Guard could hope to accomplish. The Succubus could not only detect the jewels but also claim them for her ally, and she agreed to do so in exchange for the Cuckoo’s vow to use the Black Guard to crush the rebels of Prince Lareden. That bargain had never been one the Cuckoo intended to honor, and after its theft of the jewels, it nearly possessed all it had desired.
Sitting upon a throne in the shadows, the Cuckoo smiled as it listened to a report from one of its many slaves. The green-feathered dodo called Luz cowered at its feet as she told him about the new Princess Barbara.
“She is not what she seems,” said Luz, “although I cannot understand how she has the power she possesses. Lady Alianora let slip that this Barbara came from another dimensional realm entirely. I have her clothing here.”
The Cuckoo smiled broadly as it studied the ragged dress and wig of Nightshade. “So she is an imposter,” said the silky, smooth voice of the usurper. “That means she can’t use the magic of the Porpentine. That’s good! That’s really good. That also means I might allow her to live and play at being a pretty little royal. Why crush her when she can keep the peasants happy and amuse me at the same time?”
“I must return her clothing,” Luz said. “She might suspect me if it was to unaccountably vanish.”
“I already know that!” the Cuckoo said petulantly. “Don’t try to tell me anything I don’t know, you idiot, or I’ll have to teach you something — never-ending pain as I have those green feathers plucked from your chicken skin one by one!” The green dodo nodded apologetically and started to slowly back away.
Watching from nearby, the Tantoblin grinned toothily as he stroked his white beard. Like all others who had listened to the Cuckoo’s golden voice, the innkeeper-turned-courier with the gray cloak and the pointed ears had lost all traces of his former loyalty to the Crown and had become little more than a pawn to this dark master, like many others in the Land.
As the traitor Luz returned to her duties at the Royal Palace, the Cuckoo barked out an order to another of its enslaved lackeys. “Wilkinson, I would like you to test this fake Barbara. I mean, don’t kill her or anything like that, but try to really scare her. And find out who she really is while you’re at it, okay?”
Wilkinson twitched his whiskers. He was a humanoid rat with gray fur and a long, pointed nose who wore a brown trenchcoat and a matching brown derby hat with a press card marked PRESS tucked into the ribbon. Wilkinson had always been a tough-talking, cigar-smoking reporter for the Jewelled Land’s only newspaper, The Chronicle. Like Luz before him, the rodent had remained loyal to the Royal Family and its heir only until he’d heard the Cuckoo’s voice for himself. Now Wilkinson used his stealth and snooping skills to obtain anything his master desired, within the realm and beyond it as well, within his limits. “Of course, my master,” he said. “I will pry her secrets from her before I am done with that dame.”
Smiling coldly, the Cuckoo waved one hand dismissively. “If you can do what I tell you without making yourself more of a doofus than you already are, Wilkinson, then you’ll have done better than I ever could have expected you to.”
Wilkinson grimaced, but did not dare oppose his master even if some small part of him deep within desperately wanted to. Instead, he glared at the smirking Tantoblin and vowed to one day slap that grinning fool who seemed to revel in his own enslavement right in the face.
***
Meanwhile, Eve Eden was dressed for battle. As Princess Barbara she now wore a purple dress and had smiled to herself as she watched the green-feathered female dodo depart from the Citadel of the Cuckoo. It doesn’t take a detective’s eye to see that Luz was up to something, she thought. Trailing her here was simple enough for a woman who can walk the shadows.
Nightshade had used her stealth to follow the traitor into the very heart of the Citadel of the Cuckoo. Now, as she crouched in the darkness, she waited for the right moment and then darted downward until she had reached a subterranean level.
No guards, she thought. I can’t imagine the Cuckoo expects anyone to get this far into his fortress without being seen. Still, if Lady Alianora is correct, then I’ll find the Hieromancer and Colonel Knowledge locked in cells below the castle. She felt the Cuckoo would not have killed them both, since he might need their secrets in order to master the captured magic gems.
She wore the magic jewel known as the Porpentine around her neck, but as she had discovered through experimentation she could not work its magic, and figured that was because she was not truly from the Jewelled Land. Still, she liked the feeling of having this confection of spun silver and rose quartz on her bare skin. It gave her a sensation that seemed to encourage her. Good vibrations, she thought. I think Brian Wilson put it as well as anyone.
Nightshade finally stopped before a high doorway with one barred window. Peering through it, she saw a few miserable figures imprisoned in the dungeon, some of them chained to the wall, while others sat in their own filth.
Deftly picking the lock, she stepped inside to confront the startled prisoners. “I am Princess Barbara,” she said, “and I’ve come to free you all.”
“P-Princess?” an old man with a long white beard, whom she guessed to be the Hieromancer, said weakly. He was chained to the wall, and his ragged clothing barely held onto his bony frame. “This cell is… no place for you. The whole Citadel is but… a living extension of its dark master.”
Indeed, as Eve whirled around at the sound of inhuman laughter, the entire wall assumed the shape of a bird’s face and beak, and the door sealed behind her.
“Welcome to the Citadel of the Cuckoo, my bogus Princess Barbara! I’ve enjoyed watching you prance around the whole Land since you first got here. Even though the Hieromancer said it so nicely already, I’ll tell you again. This castle is a part of me and does whatever I want it to. I know all that goes on in every one of its halls.”
Eve tried to use her powers, but the walls grew brighter as if illuminated by some unseen light.
“I might like a lot of dark stuff, dear girl, but that doesn’t mean I can’t stand the light — and I can use it to stop you from using your own powers, too!” said the distorted voice of the Cuckoo, magically projected through the cell wall. An unseen force ripped the jewel from her neck, and she watched helplessly as it vanished. Eve fell to her knees as her powers failed her.
“Allow me to assist you, Princess,” said Colonel Knowledge, a large, rotund figure with a round torso, a top hat over a neckless half-circle head, a big mustache, and thick, round spectacles. He seemed to have been carved from wood and had facial features that looked painted on, resembling nothing so less than a wooden snowman. Despite his unreal, toy-like nature, however, he was quite dignified and eloquent. “I am afraid that here the Cuckoo’s will is absolute. That is one reason it fears us so very little.”
Eve allowed the sphere-shaped figure to lift her to her feet as her keen mind wondered just how Lady Alianora could have failed to realize that such would be the case. She frowned as an idea crossed her mind. Alianora claimed I was to be a fake Princess Barbara to inspire the people, she thought. Perhaps she truly just wanted me to be a sacrifice in place of the true Princess. She shook her head in disgust. And I walked right into the trap. Why did I ignore the danger signs? I wouldn’t have acted so foolishly back when I first started with the CIA. Did that jewel dull my very thoughts?
***
Within the Royal Palace, the Lady Alianora herself stared into a crystal sphere and said, “Do not doubt me, child. I did what had to be done. The Jewelled Land can only survive if all play their appointed roles. If magical suppression of your normal wits is necessary, then so be it. If my plan is to work, then it is vital that the Cuckoo gains the magical Porpentine, and that could only be done by having you fall into his clutches. He would suspect aught else.”